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Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
81–90 of 173 posts
Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
#82> What that means at the time of writing2 is that it’s a single-threaded interpreter running as a unix process that speaks udp protocol to a meshed network (and http to your browser).
I've looked up Urbit a couple times before, and this paragraph is the first time I ever even had an inkling of what it was.
Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
#83For those that are curious to try Urbit, you can boot a free identity called a comet in just a few minutes: https://urbit.org/getting-started/
Once you have it running, go to http://localhost:80 to use the web interface (Landscape). The Urbit Community group is the most active. Just hit "Join Group" the main page and enter "~bitbet-bolbel/urbit-community"
Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Urbit is a prank I had Curtis pitch urbit to me in the very early days and I can assure you that he did not intend it to be a prank. He was deadly serious about it. I think his true motives were much darker. I think he wanted to start a cult following the model of L. Ron Hubbard. And I think he succeeded.
If you want the world to become Tlon, don't you need an Orbis Tertius? As someone who has never met Curtis but has been initiated into both the cult of urbit and the cult of lisp, I've sometimes wondered how familiar he was the works of the latter, as you can often see some familiar things when you squint, but it's covered up with strange materials, quite possibly of alien origins.
Curtis definitely was aware of Lisp. I pointed out to him that he seemed to be reinventing Lisp, but very badly. He actually acknowledged this, or at least acknowledged that this was a possibility. He specifically said that this was part of the Grand Plan (my description, not his): making Urbit radically different from anything that had gone before was an explicit design goal. That is one of the reasons I came to the conclusion that I did.
Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the contrary, I think the author spent a lot of effort to understand the underlying tech stack - honestly I can't understand why, but maybe they were exceptionally bored? This is the first time I learned that the underlying VM is single-threaded, for example.
Why would you think he spent a lot of effort? The second sentence literally says that he did not.
I haven't seen Urbit advocates contest the things he's saying (and he's not the only one that's said them). They'll say "it's a work in progress" or "that's not what were trying to accomplish" or other deflections.
A cogent retort would advance the conversation, but it won't happen because what he says is largely correct.
Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
#86The only good thing about Urbit are the Jorge Luis Borges references. Fun fact, the creator of Urbit, Curtis Yarvin, is a far-right blogger with some pretty crazy ideas: http://distributedweb.care/posts/who-owns-the-stars/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin > Curtis Guy Yarvin (born 1973), also known by the pen name Mencius Moldbug, is an American far-right blogger. Yarvin and his ideas are often associated…
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Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
#87[deleted]
Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
#88I also did a deep dive on Urbit a few months back (shameless plug: https://blog.janissary.xyz/posts/urbit ), and I really agree with the author for the most part. Definitely the most concerning part of Urbit, for me at least, is the obscurantism of Hoon. Much like the author says, it's totally incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't read through every bit of the (lacking imo) documentation. Even a domain-specific langu…
Yes, exactly this. I've tried so many times to engage with Urbit but at every turn things seem intentionally inscrutable. I have a star that I've wanted to sell several times, but each time I give up after several hours of unsuccessfully trying to understand the bridge/ethereum documentation.
It ends up seeming more like an art project than a new technology.
Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
#89you should rewrite "bit of history" => "urbit of history"
can't let a pun like that go.
Re: Urbit: The good, the bad, and the insane
#90I also did a deep dive on Urbit a few months back (shameless plug: https://blog.janissary.xyz/posts/urbit ), and I really agree with the author for the most part. Definitely the most concerning part of Urbit, for me at least, is the obscurantism of Hoon. Much like the author says, it's totally incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't read through every bit of the (lacking imo) documentation. Even a domain-specific langu…
As far as I know Urbit itself was an attempt to realize the author's neofeudalist/monarchist political ideas through technology. I don't think he succeeded but I have to say I'm not entirely clear on why the people who maintain it and use it are still interested in doing so, because that association seems pretty hard to shake.